We need to end the orgy of rule-making at once and embrace the simple rules that true liberals like America's founders envisioned.

He was right. But Churchill never imagined a government that would add 10,000 year after year. Thatâ€™s what we have in America. We have 160,000 pages of rules from the feds alone. States and localities have probably doubled that. We have so many rules that legal specialists canâ€™t keep up. Criminal lawyers call the rules â€œincomprehensible.â€ They are. They are also â€œuncountable.â€ Congress has created so many criminal offenses that the American Bar Association says it would be futile to even attempt to estimate the total.

So what do the politicians and bureaucrats of the permanent government do? They pass more rules.

Thatâ€™s not good. It paralyzes life.

Politicians sometimes say they understand the problem. They promise to â€œsimplify.â€ But they rarely do. Mostly, they come up with new rules. Itâ€™s just natural. Itâ€™s how the public measures politicians. Schoolchildren on Washington tours ask, â€œWhat laws did you pass?â€ If they donâ€™t pass new laws, the media whine about the â€œdo-nothing Congress.â€

This is also not good.

When so much is illegal, common sense dies. Out of fear of breaking rules, people stop innovating, trying, helping.

Think I exaggerate? Consider what happened in Britain, a country even more rule-bound than America. A man had an epileptic seizure and fell into a shallow pond. Rescue workers might have saved him, but they wouldnâ€™t enter the 3-foot-deep pond. Why? Because â€œsafetyâ€ rules passed after rescuers drowned in a river now prohibited â€œemergency workersâ€ from entering water above their ankles. Only 30 minutes later, when rescue workers with â€œstage 2 trainingâ€ arrived, did they enter the water, discover that the man was dead and carry him to the approved inflatable medical tent. Twenty other cops, firemen and â€œrescuersâ€ stood next to the pond and watched.

The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, sometimes called the first libertarian thinker, said, â€œThe more artificial taboos and restrictions there are in the world, the more the people are impoverished….The more that laws and regulations are given prominence, the more thieves and robbers there will be.â€ He complained that there were â€œlaws and regulations more numerous than the hairs of an ox.â€ What would he have thought of our world?

Big-government advocates will say that as society grows more complex, laws must multiply to keep up. The opposite is true. It is precisely because society is unfathomably complex that laws must be kept simple. No legislature can possibly prescribe rules for the complex network of uncountable transactions and acts of cooperation that take place every day. Not only is the knowledge that would be required to make such a regulatory regime work unavailable to the planners, it doesnâ€™t actually exist, because people donâ€™t know what they will want or do until they confront alternatives in the real world. Any attempt to manage a modern society is more like a bull in a darkened china shop than a finely tuned machine. No wonder the schemes of politicians go awry.

F.A. Hayek wisely said, â€œThe curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.â€ Another Nobel laureate, James M. Buchanan, put it this way: â€œEconomics is the art of putting parameters on our utopias.â€

Barack Obama and his ilk in both parties donâ€™t want parameters on their utopias. They think the world is subject to their manipulation. That idea was debunked years ago.

â€œWith good men and strong governments everything was considered feasible,â€ the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises wrote. But with the advent of economics, â€œit was learned that … there is something operative which power and force are unable to alter and to which they must adjust themselves if they hope to achieve success, in precisely the same way as they must taken into account the laws of nature.â€

Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time. Report abuses.

315 responses to “Complex Societies Need Simple Laws”

Congress and the Executive have ceded so much to the regulatory agencies they’ve created, and they love it! None of the crippling bullshit that comes from those regulations can be pinned on any of the legislators. Legislators are disconnected with the world that has to deal with these burdens (except when collecting payment from one business for regulatorily smiting its rival), and bureaucrats exist wholly in that world and can’t imagine anything else.

Only 168 times? I’d figure there’d be 168 pages. White Idiot is a one trick pony, and he repeats that trick over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over…

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics. -Thomas Sowell

Food resources were “both varied and abundant”, particularly the energy rich mangetti nut- “so abundant that millions of the nuts rotted on the ground each year for want of picking.”

[…]

Although surrounded by cultivators, they have until recently refused to take up agriculture themselves, “mainly on the grounds that this would involve too much hard work”. In this they are like the Bushmen, who respond to the neolithic question with another: “Why should we plant, when there are so many mongomongo nuts in the world?”

They understand it perfectly fucking well. They’re doing this shit on purpose.

I know a lot of people really hate Ayn Rand (with a passion I find puzzling) but she put her finger on this problem: rigging the law so that everybody is a “criminal” gives the ruling class power, power they won’t give up voluntarily.

“The people of your culture cling with fanatical tenacity to the specialness of man. They want desperately to perceive a vast gulf between man and the rest of creation. This mythology of human superiority justifies their doing whatever they please with the world, just the way Hitler’s mythology of Ayran superiority justified his doing whatever he pleased with Europe. But in the end this mythology is not deeply satisfying. The Takers are a profoundly lonely people. The world for them is enemy territory, and they live in it like an army of occupation, alienated and isolated by their extraordinary specialness.”

Uh, there’s a difference between actual rights and natural rights. I don’t know what Rand meant, since no context is given, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess she was talking about actual rights.

Actual rights are the freedoms that government actually recognizes — the things you are physically allowed to do at a point in time and a particular place. Usually actual rights are more restricted than natural rights (e.g., the Native Americans had no actual property rights) but sometimes they are more expansive for a particular group than natural rights (e.g., white people had rights to property that they shouldn’t have had a right to).

Natural rights, on the other hand, are the true set of freedoms that we have a right to whether or not any living person or any government at all recognizes them as such. Libertarians generally define natural rights as the right to be free from aggression from others, or the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A socialist, a fascist, a conservative, a (non-classical) liberal, etc. would each define natural rights differently. In the US, today, however, actual rights are the same regardless of your philosophy. Actual rights are what the laws on the books define them to be right now right here.

I hope that clears things up. If Rand really didn’t think Native Americans had natural rights, then she was wrong. I’m not a Rand-fan either way.

Let’s see where we’ve got holes in the 3x5card of life per the sleep-inducing paper weight some people call the bible and if it matters:

-Honor thy father and mother…Probably a good idea if you like your parents. If they are assholes…fuck ’em. Their corpses rotting in the street will serve as lessons to others NOT TO BE ASSHOLES. In the end, this should be more of a recommendation derived from logic. -Do not commit adultery…Probably a good idea if you want to avoid being murdered/assaulted by the spouse or spouses jilted by your ugly bumping. In the end though, monitoring this at the state level would be impossible and sometimes, people just want to fuck new holes. Mark this as another recommendation. Go ahead and cheat, but don’t be surprised when your wife takes half of your shit and/or buries a meat cleaver in your pelvis.

The problem immediately becomes, what is defined as “fraud”? What different types of murder are there (i.e. accidentally hitting somebody w/ a car v. tying them up in your basement, cutting off a new digit every day and forcing them to eat the meat, and raping them repeatedly until they die from shock, or from the wire coat-hanger that you shove a little further into their vagina each day).

Each of those scenerios generates a slew of laws to define the parameters, and on and on it goes.

Not to mention “people”, “shall not be infringed”, “shall not be violated”, “speedy and public trial”, “[right] to be informed”, “[right] to be confronted”, “shall not be construed to deny”, “are reserved to”, “people” again, “commerce”, “rights and priveleges”, etc.

Empires have fallen for a variety of reasons throughout history. In China dynasties collapsed and huge amounts people died in the subsequent turmoil, simply because their bureaucracies became so big and so stifling they dragged the entire country down with them.

“A man had an epileptic seizure and fell into a shallow pond. Rescue workers might have saved him, but they wouldn’t enter the 3-foot-deep pond. Why? Because “safety” rules passed after rescuers drowned in a river now prohibited “emergency workers” from entering water above their ankles.”

Sort of like two cops blocking entry into a burning building as a little girl’s relatives try to charge in and attempt a rescue.

Limetree Island can sink into the fucking ocean. come to think of it, so can about a quarter of the states in this Union.

A Hampshire Fire and Rescue spokesman said: “Let us be clear, the decisions taken at the Walpole Lake incident had nothing to do with health and safety or the depth of the water.

“On arrival at the scene, the officer and crews saw a body face down and submerged in the water, who we now know to be Mr Simon Burgess.

“That person was unresponsive and showing no visible signs of life. Based on this assessment, they prepared for the arrival of one of the service’s specialist water rescue unit to undertake a dignified retrieval of the individual from the water.

“Our officers and staff clearly stated, that if they saw any signs of life and the individual could be saved, they would have gone in to the water and followed rescue procedures.

You can’t be certain he’s not dead if you don’t actually go down to him and examine the body and check his vitals. At that point, you might as well get him on a stretcher and send him to the ER. And people think it’s the libertarians who just let people die? Geez.

Nope, Stalin would have woken him up, told him that everything is cool, given him five rubles, then would have sent Vasili Blokhin after him to shoot him in the nape of the neck… preferably before he spent the five rubles.

The theft of material goods leaves us feeling wronged because it robs us of our ability to use a given resource. If someone broke in and took my computer, I would feel wronged, because I could no longer use my computer. It is not that my “right to ownership” has been violated that bothers me; it is the violation of my “right to use.”

For this reason, I probably wouldn’t kick the guy off the lawn, unless he was interfering with my use of the property. Like, say I wanted to back my car up, but I would end up running over his head. I’d ask him to move.

Does this story go somewhere next? Or am I supposed to be tricked into violating the Non-Aggression Principle at some point?

You’re full of shit that you somehow “worked” for it. That explanation is only to whitewash the aggression.

“[The Native Americans] didn’t have any rights to the land … Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent.” ~Ayn Rand, US Military Academy at West Point, March 6, 1974

You’ll initiate violence (or more likely call for agricultural city-Statist backup) to get him to leave.

“We don’t see a lot of the violence, is because it’s exported. Another reason we don’t see a lot of the violence is because we’ve been so metabolized into the system that we’ve bought into this strange notion that it’s okay to have to pay to exist on the planet.

“That’s really, really weird.

“And, if you don’t pay, then some guy with a gun is going to come and bad things are going to happen to you.”

Doing more than gently pushing him off your property is going beyond defense.Unless killing or injuring the aggressor is necessary to end the aggression (and in this case, it’s not), you can’t justify shooting him.

If the free market didn’t fail to provide a job for everyone, provide a living wage, keep the air and and water pollution free, keep food safe, and lots of other stuff it fails to do, we wouldn’t need the government to intervene.

So we’ve had 7 decades of New Deal-style massive government intervention. Does everyone have a job? Does everyone have a “living wage?” Are the air and water pollution-free? Has even a year gone by with no one being poisoned by tainted food? No, but they’ve managed to lock 3 million people in prison, kill millions more, stifle innovation, abrogate constitutional protections for individuals, spend 15 trillion dollars more than they had, debase the currency to the point that the poor can’t afford food or transportation, create a permanent class of people dependent upon the government, and destroy the country’s reputation in the world. If the government didn’t fail so spectacularly at everything it tried, we wouldn’t need the free market.

Agriculture makes life more toilsome and less secure. The more your food comes from agriculture, the harder you have to work. The rate at which hunting and gathering pays off?1 calorie of work gets you 5 calories of food. By contrast, with farming, 1 calorie of work gets you 2 calories of food. Growing your own food represents the path of greatest resistance, and the more of it you grow, the greater the resistance. But travel to the most inhospitable desert of Australia during the most horrendous drought?and you won’t find a single starving aborigine anywhere. Our agricultural revolution had so little going for it that it’s a wonder it happened at all.”

But to address your tangent, there is no place to go, even if I wanted too. The whole world has been invaded and occupied now.

Civilization has precluded “running off into the woods” as an option fairly well. Hunting regulations pose serious encumberments, to say nothing of the fact that some meager income must be maintained to pay for hunting and fishing licenses, as well as taxes on land.

So, you’re saying you won’t go wander the wilderness because of the hunting rights set up by THE EVIL AGRICULTURAL CITY-STATIST WHO TOOK THE LAND FROM THE NATIVES WITH THEIR TAKING COLLECTIVE RIGHT? You have a lot of respect for rights you don’t recognize.

For this reason, I believe that Jason Godesky doesn’t even exist. We are supposed to believe that he came to believe that the state of primitive man was the best state. Then, he came to the conclusion that, the best thing to do about this, is to create webpage about it and incessantly blog about it in cybercafes.

This would be like me deciding that farming sucks, and then joining an Amish community so I could whine about it to them.

She had the same murderous fantasy: blow the whole thing up and start over.

Pol Pot wanted to:? (a) “restart civilization”? (b) by cleansing civilization of liberal influences? (c)and punishing and starving out people he regarded as subhumans? (d) at Year Zero.

Ayn Rand wanted also to:? (a) restart civilization? (b) by cleansing civilization of liberal influences? (c) and punishing and starving out people she regarded as subhumans ?(d) with a wave of the dollar brand cigarette.

Not much difference. But what else would you expect from a philosophical movement inspired by a serial child killer?

Speaking as someone who was born into welfare and poverty, let me tell you that there are not “government safety nets”. They should be more appropriately referred to as poverty nets or as we affectionately referred to them when I was a kid, “roach motels”. Poor check in and never check out.

? Is any white person‘s right an individual or collective right? ? Is the right to take a negative or positive right?

“[The Native Americans] didn’t have any rights to the land … Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent.” ~Ayn Rand, US Military Academy at West Point, March 6, 1974

The economy would grow if we would simply transfer wealth from the rich to the poor. The increase in consumer spending would increase aggregate demand, causing the economy to grow. This, in turn, generates new revenue. So, it pays for itself. The poor should not have to earn what they spend to live. It’s a basic human right, and the reaped rewards in economic growth would allow it to pay for itself. If you do not understand this, then you’re too stupid to understand Keynesian economics. Or you’re just cruel.

Can you name a single country in the world where the government could provide a job for everyone, other than the USSR ? Check out some of the worst polluted places, they also have the biggest governments. As for your living wage, why should useless shits with no skills, unless you call a sociology degree a useful skill, be paid for doing nothing of value ?

If the free market didn’t fail to provide a job for everyone, provide a living wage,

Even if one can concede the free market is responsible for providing those things, how does one deal with people, who through the decisions they make (having children young, failing to educate oneself, foolish managing their money), render themselves to a life of poverty even if the free market provides them ample opportunity otherwise?

We’ve never actually had a truly free market. By the time the property, commercial, and working rights of women and non-whites were finally recognized as equal to those of white males, there were so many market regulations that even if everyone had equal rights, no one’s rights were sufficient to call it a true free market.

Red tape no longer exists: laws are conceived of, passed, funded, and executed within hours, rather than months. The bureaucratic machinery becomes a juggernaut, rolling over human concerns and welfare with terrible speed, jerking the universe of sentients one way, then another, threatening to destroy everything in a fit of spastic reactions. In short, the speed of government goes beyond sentient control

Leading to a reaction: BuSab began as a terrorist organization whose sole purpose was to frustrate the workings of government in order to give sentients a chance to reflect upon changes and deal with them. Having saved sentiency from its government.

Out of fear of breaking rules, people stop innovating, trying, helping.

This is pretty much the main reason why anyone even thinking about starting a small business at this time is out of their mind IMO. Now’s not the time to innovate or be creative, it’s time to just survive. God that’s a depressing thought. Sometime I really hate being so cynical.

Correction to my earlier post. It was Theodor Sturgeon that observed “ninety percent of everything is crap”. He maintained that this applies to art, science, politics, and pretty much everything created by man. I suspect he was being optimistic when it comes to politics and politicians.

But let’s not turn our ire on the men and women we sent to Washington. Let’s not blame them for doing what we incentivized them to do.

The blame lies on all of us.

Since you shared some great quotes from some great economists, I’d like to add one more:

“People have a great misconception in this way. They think the way they solve things is by electing the right people. It’s nice to elect the right people, but that isn’t the way you solve things. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.”

This is one thing the Tea Party and Occupy should agree on. The reason there are so many laws is because it is a way to control and exploit the masses, and increases the opportunity for graft and corruption of those who pass the laws. Where the Tea Party and Occupy part ways is in the solution. Occupy apparently wants more laws and government (one would assume that they get to make these news laws so they get to be in charge) while the Tea Party wants more restrictions on the government’s ability to rule over us. I know which one I pick.

I agree entirely. The core, driving problem between US lawmakers and the citizens is that the lawmakers do, entirely, think of themselves as an entirely different group of individuals – “Who watches the watchmen?”

To confound matters worse, the advent and creation of new laws doesn’t curb how people behave… it simply “creates” new outlaws.

We’re slowly, inevitably, as a nation, veering towards a point of either total failure or total revolution *because* of how our country is being run. I can’t wait.

This is very good article you have given here, In today world its so complicated to understand what the law says, we have millions of pages that describe law and the other thing is there are so many kind of branches out there like immigration law, traffic law , criminal law which describe the complications of the legal systems.